


we found each other in the dark

by adreamaloud, daneorange (adreamaloud)



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:29:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/adreamaloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreamaloud/pseuds/daneorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delphine watches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we found each other in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a song by City & Colour. I own nothing.

 

_This is a test,_ is what Delphine tells herself, the first time she sees Cosima in the laboratory. Aptly, Delphine is inside a room, looking through a tinted window, Aldous in her ear: _Isn't she lovely,_ he's saying through the earpiece. _And valuable. Very, very valuable._

In the laboratory, Cosima shoves a hand into her lab coat's pocket, adjusting her glasses as she closes her notebook with her other hand.  Frustration ghosts over her face, and Delphine feels something inside her _twitch._ "Merde," she murmurs under her breath.

"What did you say?" Aldous asks -- she's forgotten he was still on the phone.

"I have to go," says Delphine, tugging at her earpiece and shoving it into her bag. She doesn't want to do this -- _Why can't we just stick to the science?_ she remembers asking Aldous, and that time he just said, _This is science -- it's called observation._ Delphine never buys that, but then here she is, reaching for the folder he had instructed her to pick up from this room.

She still has the key in her pocket.

She sighs as she finally picks the folder off the table, half-expecting it to contain Cosima's profile. Instead, Delphine sees a one-page transcript -- _hers_.

_Fucking Leekie,_ she just thinks, folding it and shoving it into her bag as well. It' s been years since she was in any university, and for all the time she spent in higher educational facilities all over the world, a part of her has always dreaded being _here_ , one way or another.

_Then again,_ she thinks, shifting her eyes to Cosima again -- this time, the girl's face is partly hidden by a microscope. Delphine leans in closer, hand on the window, trying to see more clearly. _Was that a small smile right there?_ she wonders.

Maybe this time around need not be so bad.

*

Days later, Delphine realizes how wrong she was -- of course, it's still _bad_ , and no amount of growing up and old apparently makes it better. When she walks into her first class -- _Come on, just for fun,_ was what Aldous said -- she's even more awkward and out of place than the last time she remembers, and why did she ever think this would get _easier_ , again?

Unguided, Delphine spends days trying to run into Cosima -- she had totally discounted the university's _size_ from the equation, and does not see her until the third day, when she catches Cosima between library stacks, engrossed in a book.

_Look up,_ Delphine thinks, chewing on a pen. She knows the easiest way in is through a smile, so she leans against a shelf right across the aisle and _waits_. There's a small tense moment where Cosima almost turns her head -- _almost,_ because in the end all she does is cock her head to the side and nod before turning around and pushing the book back onto the shelf.

Letting out a long breath, Delphine sags back against the stacks, waiting for Cosima to disappear as she turns the corner. _No interference,_ Aldous had said. _Just watching._

Delphine listens for the echo of Cosima's boots against the marble floor and waits for it to fade. _Right,_ she thinks. _Watching. How hard can that be?_

*

Many times, Delphine considers: _How skewed can the data get, if I dared?_ The first time it hits her, she’s a month into the observation, and she’s looking out of a second floor-window, watching as Cosima leaves the building.

There’s a loneliness in Cosima that Delphine cannot shake off – _stick to the science,_ she tells herself. _Lonely isn’t science._ But then, whenever she catches Cosima sitting somewhere by herself, Delphine has to fend off this _feeling --_ like something is _calling_ to her very, very softly and telling her, _I’m right here._

_That’s ridiculous; you haven’t even heard her voice._ All these months she hasn’t heard Cosima speak yet – she still hasn’t managed to come that close. _But maybe…_

_Get off it, Delphine._ She pushes herself away from the window, and just like that, she’s done for the day.

*

When Aldous tells her it is time to engage, Delphine feels herself hesitating. _Am I actually scared now?_  she asks herself, surprised.“You said,” she begins, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. _Thank God this is a phone call._ “You said all I had to do was watch.”

“Well—yes,” says Aldous, the chuckle lining his reply utterly infuriating. “Isn’t it getting a bit boring though?”

“I’m fine with boring,” says Delphine, rolling her eyes.

Aldous clears his throat, signaling a shift to a more formal tone. “You’ll do it though,” he says. It is out like a command and not a suggestion. Times like these Delphine hates the fact that he has so much on her that he can do just about _anything_ to get what he wants. “And as quickly as possible, too.”

“I haven’t even talked to her—”

“Then find a way.”

“She has to come to me—”

“ _Find_ a way.”

“But—” The line goes out in the middle of Delphine’s protest, and in her frustration she nearly throws her phone against the wall. “ _Merde_ ,” she just mutters, sinking into her seat.

*

In the end, Delphine decides to get closer – still at a distance, of course, because she believes in _slow and steady._ She thinks rushing accomplishes nothing for the most part – it’s science, not a fucking _race._

_Right,_ Delphine thinks, counting to ten before following Cosima into the auditorium, where a visiting fellow is scheduled to deliver a talk on tissue regeneration among zebra fish, or so the announcement says. Delphine finds herself smiling as she slides into a seat near the exit. _Likes random lectures,_ Delphine notes in her head.

The first time she hears Cosima’s voice, they are in the restroom, post-lecture. It’s one of those moments that are totally unplanned – Delphine is on the way out when Cosima comes in, distracted, phone in her ear.

Delphine hears her saying into the receiver: “Not here.” Cosima turns her face away as she passes Delphine, the closest they’ve been after all this time, and Delphine breathes her in; she smells like cigarettes and seawater, only sweeter.

Everything about Cosima is a surprise – from that hoarseness in her voice to that _gait_. Delphine turns her head and tries to stare for as long as she can afford: This close, Cosima seems even smaller yet all the more magnetic. Delphine thinks about gravity and celestial bodies, miniscule and huge.

_This shouldn’t make sense but it does,_ Delphine thinks, hand on her chest, forcing herself to look away from Cosima and heading out.

*

Aldous begins their next conversation with: “Have you found a way?” Delphine stalls, fiddling with her phone. “ _Delphine_.”

“It’s just that—I don’t _want_ to skew the results, if I interfere—”

“I _am_ asking you to interfere.”

“But you said—the process—”

“—is now taking a different turn,” says Aldous, his tone more menacing than Delphine ever remembers. “We have to speed this up, or they’re all be—” he cuts himself off abruptly, like he’s catching himself on the verge of something. Delphine pushes her phone tighter against her ear, as if she can hear more if she does it right.

“Dr. Leekie?”

“Never mind,” he sighs. “We’re running out of time, Delphine. Please just do it.”

*

Delphine enters the laboratory that day and takes the station across Cosima, heart in her throat. _Skewed, screwed. Does it matter at this point?_

She sighs, taking her transcript out and putting it on the table before setting her bag upon it. A couple of steps away, Cosima is busy talking to a colleague – the boy is completely smitten with her, Delphine can sense as much, and Delphine just thinks, _It shouldn’t be so hard._

When the boy moves away, Delphine starts talking into her phone, her face half-turned. _You have one chance to pull this off,_ she tells herself, before daring to glance at Cosima, who by now is already looking at her with her glasses on, like she has to see Delphine _clearly._

It throws Delphine slightly, and that moment she decides to throw her phone on the table with a soft, “Merde,” is not entirely unmeant.

When she looks at Cosima again, she says: “I’m sorry.”

_Just how apt is it,_ Delphine thinks on her way out, _that the first thing I ever say to her is an apology?_ Delphine feels something _start_ in her chest, and she doesn’t get very far before she starts crying.

_This is how it starts, and this is how it ends,_  she just thinks, waiting. _#_


End file.
